


Leave Your Lover

by ariannenymerosmartell (somethingmoo)



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-04
Updated: 2014-08-04
Packaged: 2018-02-11 18:07:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2077959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somethingmoo/pseuds/ariannenymerosmartell





	Leave Your Lover

"Run away with me," he blurts out, when Rhaella tells him that her royal grandsire has commanded her to wed her brother. "We’ll go to Braavos, or Myr, or Pentos. Anywhere."

But Rhaella shakes her head, tears streaming down her face.

“I have a duty,” she sobs, and Bonifer knows those are King Aegon’s words in Rhaella’s mouth. “A duty to the realm and to my family.”

He wants to reach out and hold her. To take her into his arms and stroke her hair and kiss her brow until her sobs quiet.

How many times had he wished to reach out and draw her in for a kiss? How many times had he pictured pulling her close, and burying his face in her sweet silver hair and inhaling her scent?

Men fantasize about bedding women. Bonifer has only ever dreamt of holding Rhaella, of keeping her small frame safe, and warm, and loved.

His arms ache to hold her, stroke her hair, tell her that it will be okay, that it will be fine, that they will find a way, but he is suddenly, sharply, aware that she is not his, that she could never be _his,_.

He had known it, known that he’d never be allowed to marry her, when he asked for her favor, sure that she’d refuse. But then her eyes had lit up, those lovely violet eyes that were by turns playful and wistful then, and she’d graced him with such a sweet smile that he’d forgotten his place. He’d forgotten that he was a lowly knight and she, a princess. The future Queen.

He’d forgotten his place when he heard her clapping and cheering for him, when he unhorsed every knight sent his way. He forgot it anew every time he looked into her eyes and saw her love for him shining back, mirroring what his own must be showing. Nothing seemed impossible then, when he saw that Rhaella loved him.

Her eyes are mournful now, large, and red-ringed, and sad, so sad, and his heart breaks, even more. For her, for himself, for the fools they had been when he’d placed a wreath of roses on her head and proclaimed her Queen of Love and Beauty, the most beautiful woman in all the seven kingdoms, and she had smiled so brightly, so widely, and extended her hand for him to kiss.

He thinks he might be the only man in all of Westeros, in all the world, who has fallen in love with a woman without so much as kissing her. The only fool in all the seven kingdoms who would give his heart and soul, to someone who could never return it, but she did return it, she did. He has Rhaella’s heart, and soul; he just cannot have _her hand_.

And it’s her hand he wants. Men would want her body, tell him to take her, then and there, make her his, make it so she can’t marry her brother, make it so she has to run away, but he wants her _hand_. He wants her to be his bride, his wife. He wants to father children on her, true born children, with her purple eyes, and his easy laughs. Sons who would make him proud, and daughters who would be as lovely as their mother.

He cannot shame her, will never shame her, even if it means losing her. Even if it means spending the rest of his life alone, because if he cannot have Rhaella as his wife, he does not want another. It would not be fair to the other woman, to always be in Rhaella’s shadow, to always be second best, because he could give some other woman his name, and his house, and his children, but his heart and soul already belong to Rhaella, and what is a man without his heart, and without his soul?

"As you say, Princess," he chokes out, because he is broken, broken now. A man without a heart and soul is _broken_ , and a Princess without her knight is lost.

"I love you," she sobs, but she does not reach for him. She keeps her arms to her side, the very image of propriety, and Bonifer knows that she will make an excellent Queen.

"And I love you," he whispers, and struggles to keep his arms down, because once, just once, he needs to hold her, to feel her heart beat next to his, to know they are one. "I will always be yours," he says, though he knows the words must feel like daggers to her heart, because they are daggers to his.

Her eyes widen, and close slowly, tears spilling silently down her pale cheeks and over her lovely lips. He’s only ever seen those lips curled up into a smile, and to see them now, bitten and chewed, and turned down into a frown cuts him more than a thousand swords, cuts him more than the bloody throne that forbids their union.

"You are mine, as I am yours," she whispers back. "One flesh, one heart, one soul, now and forever."

They are vows, Rhaella has said vows, the same vows he longed to say with her in the sept at Storm’s End. They are marriage vows, and he cannot marry her, and she will marry her brother, but he repeats them back all the same.

"You are mine, as I am yours. One flesh, one heart, one soul, now and forever."

He takes his leave of her then, and hears her sobs echoing behind him, but he does not turn back, cannot turn back, because if he turns back he will break, and he will grab her and run for the nearest ship to take them away, so far away, but she loves him for his goodness and he loves her for hers, and so he cannot, and they cannot.

He walks into the Great Sept, and kneels at the alter of the Maiden, to make another set of vows.


End file.
